


You gotta find your faith, before you leap

by ThatOneGirlBehindYou



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Angst, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Loose timelines, Minor Original Character(s), Not Canon Compliant, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony and Pepper adopt a daughter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-05 23:44:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17334608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatOneGirlBehindYou/pseuds/ThatOneGirlBehindYou
Summary: Miles prides himself on having the eyes of an artist. Attention to detail and a feeling for the hidden meanings in things are two characteristics needed for it, so naturally he notices.----Of course he's dead here. Peter couldn't be so lucky could he? Twice orphaned, divorced and kidnapped from his home dimension, and he still had the nerve to have hope? Please.Sometimes you get up not because you still believe, but because you have no other option.





	You gotta find your faith, before you leap

**Author's Note:**

> **Please take notice there's a brief mention of suicidal ideation in this fic**
> 
> A simple drabble that came out of me and Chami discussing Into the Spiderverse and headcanoning that Peter B. is actually MCU Peter. Then I went into angst territory as I usually do.

The time they spent together was short, but Miles prides himself on having the eyes of an artist. Attention to detail and a feeling for the hidden meanings in things are two characteristics needed for it, so naturally he notices.

He notices when Peter's eyes linger on the cover of a magazine. On it there's a black ribbon, and it takes Miles a moment to remember it's the anniversary of Tony Stark's passing. The guy had died before Miles was even born, murdered by terrorists in Afghanistan. Miles only knows about him because his dad admires the guy, bought Miles the Stark Industries Kit for Starter Engineers when he was nine.

"Someone you know?" Miles asks, but Peter merely keeps walking towards the burger joint, and the curve of his shoulders seems heavier than before.

\----

Swinging. Buildings passing him by as he heads for the towering hotel. 

It's an odd coincidence, that Tony should come to visit New York the same week Peter's life basically ended, but his luck has always had a sick sense of humor.

He could really use a drink -oh how long had it taken him to be able to just sit with him and drink like old friends, even after practically dying in his arms- and Tony always did know how to cheer him up. His bones may have slowed down and the suit may be Harley's now, but his wit and humor remained the same.

Swinging, faster and faster to the only home he has left.

\---

"- nd I know I'm not really _your_ aunt, and you're not my Peter..." Miles knows he should not be eavesdropping. Knows he's bound to not even understand what is being talked about, since Peter is quite literally from another dimension. However, the raw feeling in Aunt May's voice makes her words enthralling and Miles finds himself stuck like -if you would excuse- a fly in a spider's web "But you're _a_ Peter. I know you're hurting, and I can't just sit by and ignore it"

"Everyone's hurting May" Peter's dry voice replies. Miles can practically see the bitter curve to his lips. "You've got a full basement of super powered telenovela survivors down there, I mean... Literally everyone and their robot has lost someone they cared about"

"It's not as fresh though is it?" And Miles has heard that voice before, when his mother is just an inch away from calling him an _escuincle menso_ and lead him to the point herself.

"Eh. Uncle Ben's been gone for a long time" when he leans a bit right to see  through a crack in the door, Miles sees Peter shrug. "And MJ and I got... It's been a while since that"

"So?" Says Aunt May, which Miles guesses is the interdimensional white old lady version of _escuincle menso_ , and he sees Peter's shoulders slump as he placed his mug on the table.

"I never got to say goodbye" he says at last. "I thought at least I'd have a chance to tell him now, but I'm a few decades late. I'm always late"

"Sometimes things don't need to be said Peter" Aunt May places a soft, wrinkled hand on Peter's shoulder just as a hand lands on Miles and what the _fuck_ , isn't this exactly what the spider sense is for?!

"You shouldn't be eavesdropping" whispers Gwen. Miles rolls his eyes and whispers back.

"So you don't want me to tell you what they said?" And well, they find their way out of earshot and into the backyard soon enough.

\----

Swinging. The shooting, the falling, the recoiling. It's all mechanical as he flees the scene without a destination in mind.

He'd called an ambulance, stayed for long enough to give his statement, to see him off to the hospital, to text Pepper, but Peter had found he couldn't stay.

What a glorious fucking week, he thinks as he swings and swings and wishes the shooters would stop working. 

He's handling it like a champ .

\---

"Hm." Is all Gwen says at first. She cares about Peter, Miles has also noticed that. However, it's a weird sort of care. Like she's looking at him, but not really. Like she's missing him. "My best friend... He was a Peter Parker too" 

Yeah, that would do it.

"And were you like... A thing?" Miles wants to kick himself as soon as he asks, but he's fifteen and he might die tomorrow, he thinks he might be forgiven. Especially when Gwen lets go of her aloof mask and laughs openly, he decides maybe it wasn't such a bad thing.

"Goodness no" she says once she's recovered. "Nah, we were just... Close" she says. Her smile softens, and Miles suddenly feels very sad, that she had to lose someone that was clearly worth so much to her. "He was brilliant. Took amazing photos, but science was where it was at with him. He had a promising internship and all before he... Before he passed away"

Miles allows her the silence. He wants to take her hand, but he knows it's not his place. Instead, he rests his hand on her shoulder, and is glad when Gwen doesn't shake it off.

"Antonia Stark spoke at his funeral" Gwen says once she regains her voice. "Founded a scholarship after him too, and his aunt and uncle let her put one of the Iron Woman gauntlets in the coffin with him"

"... I understood like five percent of what you said" Miles admits.

Gwen smiles. "It's a long story. There is a Stark Industries in this universe, right?"

"Well yeah. But I don't know about any Iron anything, and Tony Stark died like... Ages ago" he frowns.  "You think that's it?"

"Maybe. I'm not going to ask him though" she shrugs. "Sometimes it's better to just keep walking, when you're like us"

\----

Of course he's dead here. Peter couldn't be so lucky could he? Lost his parents, lost his aunt and uncle, divorced and kidnapped from his home dimension, and he still had the nerve to have hope? Please.

At least aunt May is still alive. At least MJ seems... Like they had been ok.

At least Peter gets to die in this dimension and not see his last parental figure reduced to a husk of himself, hooked up to a respirator on a hospital bed.

\---

In the end, Miles doesn't get to ask Peter what's up with Tony Stark. It all happens very fast and it's too chaotic to have a dramatic mentor/student heart to heart.

Peter smiles at him.

"I love you! I'm so proud of you!" He exclaims. After a pause. "... Do I want kids?" And then after another "Huh. I guess this is how it feels like"

Miles doesn't really what Peter means, but there's no time to ask. They have control, Peni's gone and Peter and Peter and Gwen, and Peter...

"It's gonna be ok" Peter says even as they run out of time to send him back. Miles appreciates the feeling, but he can't shake the thought that Peter may just not want to go back. That Peter may have given up.

"Yes it is" So Miles does the next reasonable thing and kicks the man's legs from under him.

"You gottago home, man" he says.

"How do I know I won't screw it up again?!" Peter asks, grabbing on to his forearm.

"You don't" it feels weird, advising an adult like this. But Miles thinks that this may just be how he and Peter work. Maybe they were meant to teach each other to not give up.

Peter smiles. "... I guess you're right. It's a leap of faith" 

Miles lets go.

\---

MJ is with him at the hospital. 

They still haven't worked out what's going on or what will happen, but they know they love each other, and she knows he needs her there.

The door feels impossibly heavy when Peter pushes it open, and they go in.

Harley's there, fit and handsome as he always is, the successor Peter could never be. He looks tired, spread thin and with red eyes, unable to even take a sarcastic jab at Peter's beer belly.

"I'm guessing the dimensional rift had something to do with you?" He says, voice rough with sorrow and lack of sleep. Still, he manages to shoot Peter a smile that he reciprocates. 

"I should feel offended by the assumption" Peter says, and then he notices Pepper.

She's grown tiny with age, traded the Leboutin heels for a mother of pearl cane. Her white hair is carefully arranged into a bun and her posture, as always, denotes steel.

Next to her Maria looks much less dignified. She's always had more of Tony in her, too much emotion, desire to _act_. Maybe it's a part of her mutation, her feelings burning up as hot as the fire in her veins.

She lifts her head when she hears him speak, and Peter finds himself wrapping her in his arms, even lifting her a little like she used to love when she was six and he could hoist her up with his pinky finger.

"I'm sorry I wasn't here" he says into her hair. She squeezes harder. Peter was always her safe space, holding her through the nights where she was too scared to sleep because she was afraid her new parents would send her back to the house. Not being there for her now feels like yet another failure. "I'm here now. I'm not leaving" 

He's never leaving again.

"We were waiting for you" says Pepper, and Maria goes stiff in his arms. "Thought you might want to say goodbye"

"I do" it's amazing, Peter thinks, how two words can feel so heavy. 

He hands Maria over to MJ, and steps towards the bed.

His face looks ashen and gaunt. Peter remembers when he was Iron Man, standing behind him as he points his toy gauntlet at Vanko.

His hand feels impossibly frail and light when he lifts it in his own. Peter remembers when he was Mr. Stark, stepping off the armor when Peter dared berating him for not caring, for not being there.

The peaks and valleys on the monitor feel like a mockery of the man's life, always up and down, always trying to go on and on even when he's exhausted, when he can't do more. Peter remembers when he was Tony, standing next to May during his college graduation. 

"I always wondered why you just decided to pick me up all of a sudden" Peter starts. His voice is weak, like it's been fighting for weeks to claw its way out his throat. "I guess I get it now" he smiles. It's sad, but it's mostly fond. "Sometimes you just find them, huh?"

Harley snorts behind him. It sounds wet. "Why are you always so fucking weird Parker?" It also sounds warm.

They were waiting for him.

Peter swallows. "I don't want you to go Tony. But I know you have to" he says. "I just... I don't think I ever told you I love you. I should have. It took a few weird things to knock me back on track, but I think... I think you'd be proud. I'm gonna keep trying."

He hears the knocking of the cane on the polished marble floors, and Pepper's hand rests on the crook of his elbow. "He knew, Peter. He always did." She says. Harley comes up to her other side, and Maria wraps her arm across her mother's shoulder even as tears stream down her face. "He loved you all so much"

And he did. Tony Stark was good at loving, and he taught them all that. The fatherless kid with the makeshift workshop in his garage. The boy from Queens with the weird powers and the overworked aunt. The little mutant girl no one would even look at in the orphanage.

Tony and Pepper never did have kids of their own -and they never tried again, after Pepper's first miscarriage- but they built a family.

Perhaps Peter could do the same, dimensions notwithstanding.


End file.
